109km London to Oxford
Ride Overview
‘Oxford still remains the most beautiful thing in England, and nowhere else are life and art so exquisitely blended, so perfectly made one’. (Oscar Wilde)
But don’t discount the journey there either, across the rolling hills of the Chilterns with its perfectly ordered landscape and beyond pretty villages. Even parts of North-West London are pleasing to the eye. Once off the scarp slope and onto the plain of Oxford, the ride is purely pastoral, a timeless land of green fields where cattle graze. As a day out from the capital, this is hard to beat.
Ride Practicalities
START/FINISH: London, Shepherd’s Bush/Oxford DISTANCE: 109km TOTAL ASCENT: 847m TERRAIN AND SURFACES: This adventure ride is mainly on asphalt, including cycleways and quiet suburban roads. The route uses short sections of bridleway and a rough concrete track as well as 12 km of hard packed gravel on the Sustrans’ Phoenix Trail. After heavy rain, some sections may be muddy. The route is best suited to 28mm+tyres RECOMMENDED CAFÈS/PUBS; Greenford, Northala Fields Cafe, Chesham;The Watnot Cafe, Roots, Oxford pubs; Bear, Perch, Punter CAMPING/ACCOMMODATION; N/A, MAINLINE RAILS; Chesham; London underground Metropolitan Line, Oxford LINKS TO OTHER RIDES: Between the Great West Roads, NCN 5
Ride Notes
The purist may take issue with the starting point of this ride, for prior to the age of the velocipedes, automobiles and trains, the road to Oxford began at the Bull and Mouth Inn, St. Mary-le-Grand, in the City of London. From early Stuart times until the beginning of the railways, the four storey Inn had been the ‘Victoria Coach Station’ of its age. From here coaches left for all parts of the Kingdom and by all accounts, it was a chaotic and noisy place filled with travellers, traders, horses and coachmen. However, the ride along the old road through London is not a pleasant cycle, (Holborn Junction is a cyclist’s death zone and Oxford Street is the most polluted in Europe) so our journey begins where the Great West Roads split, at Shepeherd’s Bush. One branch goes west to Bristol, the other North West to Oxford.
The ride down the Uxbridge road, a route which was taken by the stage coaches, is somewhat busier than it might have been two hundred years ago. The road is nothing if not exotic; smells of spices, meat and perfumes mingle in the London ai. Unusual coloured fruits and odd-shaped vegetables crowd together on stalls. The babble of tongues silvers the London street; Arabic, Turkish, Slav, Pashtun. At times the cycle lane is protected by plastic pillars, at other times it is used (irritatingly) as a free parking place for men who have nipped into a tea shop to smoke a shisha pipe. By Ealing, you leave the historical road and head into the quieter suburbs.
After some quiet kilometres of riding along sometimes elegant streets where the inter-war houses are often grand and often gated, you arrive at one of London’s newest parks, Northala. Four conical mounds, built using the rubble of the old Wembley stadium arise before you, with serpentine paths leading to their summits. There’s a good community cafe, loos and a bike parking area where bikes can be left (locked) should you wish to walk up one of the peaks to admire a stunning view of London.
Northala Park
From Northala, you head towards the modern road to Oxford, the A40, built in 1923. The trunk road is a noisy affair, but the cycle lane beside it, is wide and smooth. During frequent hold-ups on the six-lanes road, it is a marvellous thing to spin past stuck-in-a-jam cars and it is hard to refrain from some smug grinning.
Having put your head down and pedalled fast beside the river of cars, you leave the A40 and ride through Swakeleys Park. Look across the river Pymme through trees and you’ll see the turrets and towers of London’s greatest Jacobean House, still a private home.
The riding so far has been on cycle lanes and quiet suburban roads. Now, as you approach the foothills of the Chilterns, the open road beckons. It rises and falls, first down to the river Colne on a single track lane, then mixes an old disused road with a short section of bridlepath before heading to Little Chalfont on a road, which is lined with palaces of unimaginable size and ostentation. You may wonder what on earth people do with so many rooms.
Chesham makes an ideal first stop. Gracious flint and brick houses line the pedestrian high street and the The Watnot Vintage Cafe has wonderful home made cakes. You’ll need the extra energy as the hill out of town onto the Chiltern’s proper is a leg-buster. The views over the valley are a wonderful distraction; beech woods, intimate fields where horses graze cover the horizon and above red kites twitch in the open sky. You ride through villages of great loveliness and through a managed countryside, where everything seems to have its perfect place. There are pubs with unuuasal names such as The Land of Liberty, Peace and Plenty, and others with reputations for super food and beer, such as Nag’s Head in Great Missenden.
Spring in the Chilterns
By the time you reach the scarpment of the Chiltern hills, having ridden along a bridleway through woods which are carpeted with bluebells in the spring, and along sinuous country lanes, the plain of Oxford will come as a relief after all the hills. You shoot down to Princes Risborough before joining the flat and hard-packed gravel surface of the Pheonix Way, an old railway, to Thame. The surface is perfect for an easy spin and before long, you are back on lanes meandering through the agricultural vale towards Oxford itself.
The entry into the city of dreaming spires is industrial, for you pass the Cowley car plant, where Morris Minors were once made. Now, owned by BMW, it turns out the iconic Mini. Using the very good city cycling network, you soon arrive in the heart of the golden city, and find yourself amidst the greatest university in the world, with its courtyards, colleges and corbels. The University was founded in 1249 and is still today regarded as the world’s leading seat of learning.
The ride finishes at the train station, from where you’ll be whisked back to Central London in little over an hour.
All the details given on this route are given in good faith. However, situations on the ground can change, so if you know of any access issues, closures, or have any thoughts and feedback on the route, please include them in the comments section below.